After reading the article following this one about poor “Isabelle”, “a loner that had been bullied”, it took me several seconds to compose myself. When I had composed myself sufficiently to think clearly once again, several questions came to me and I was at a loss for answers.

Now I know all about Treaties, Reservations and Native American government. I know all about US government preferences and how Native Americans run their own voting Precincts and how they have counted and recounted votes in recent elections from Minnesota to Washington State. I know that all men and women are created equal and that we are all God’s children. So it is in this spirit that I am reminded of Mark Twain’s famous quip, “There’s one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he’s crooked.” St. Paul newspaper, National Park Service bureaucrats, Minnesota DNR bureaucrats, Defenders of Wildlife, US Fish & Wildlife Service bureaucrats and all you Environmental/Animal Rights activists and your lawyers; “are you honest?”

If some chubby, plaid-clad, middle-aged farmer had killed a wolf where his children played:
If a lady walking her dog had shot a wolf:
If a cattleman had killed a wolf killing his cattle;
If a sheepman killed a wolf killing his sheep:
If a hunter had killed a wolf attacking a moose or an elk:
If a father killed a wolf near his children’s school bus stop:
If a grandma killed a wolf nipping at her as she checked her mailbox:
If a young deer hunter killed a wolf as it approached him:
If all these things and more occurred, would we read about it in these terms?

Would the article begin with a stunning picture of “a gray wolf known as Isabelle takes refuge last year on an icy bluff over Lake Superior to lick her wounds after being attacked by other wolves”?
Would we be treated to a picture of frolicking wolves?
Would the wolf’s death be described as a “fluke thing”?
Would the “howls” (pardon the pun) from wolf-lovers from Minneapolis to San Francisco and UN Headquarters be as non-existent?
Would the “researchers” that “named her Isabelle” be as quiet and understanding about “her” demise?
Would the Native, federal and state law enforcers blithely tell us they “won’t try to identify the shooter”?
Would there to be no future education/assurances that this will not be repeated?
Would the crime be sandwiched between beginning and ending paragraphs of classic “Romance Biology” about “bullied” wolves with lovey-dovey names and how such wolves seize “the rare opportunity to traverse at least 15 miles of ice separating Isle Royale from an area along the U.S.-Canadian border”? (NOTE: This winter you could have convoyed tanks and Caterpillar earth-movers to and from the island.)
Would the crime serve as a platform for the trite and worn-out lie that although wolves have “ helped keep the moose population in check, preventing them from overbrowsing park vegetation” on Isle Royale, wolves and predation have NO EFFECT on disappearing moose and deer on the Minnesota mainland. Period!

Would the “fact” that the highly-romanticized “ice bridge”, that periodically (like Moses at the Red Sea) provides the means for wolves to go back and forth to the Isle Royale paradise, connects Isle Royale to “the Minnesota shoreline on property owned by the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa” where the law “allows people to chase away or kill those (wolves) creating a nuisance” not be closed to all people by any means necessary? Calls for such closures, lawsuits and “howls” from urban Americans and urban Europeans would certainly result for non-Native land so strategically located, so the question must be asked, “Are wolves more important than non-Native Americans and less important than Native Americans?”

Of course we all know that if one of those non-Native perpetrator instances I noted previously happened, all $%#& would break loose. There would be calls for gun control, investigations involving families, property and destruction of one or more citizens. We would be swamped with New Yorkers and Parisians telling us about “apex” predators, “native ecosystems” and rivers no longer meandering (due to all the thick bank vegetation since no herbivores, wild or domestic, are left). The perpetrator would be described as some rural bumpkin that abused animals as a child and who should be locked up to protect society from any further depredations. We would all live in mortal fear until dear Isabelle’s niche in the ecosystem was once again filled. Descriptions of the incident would be used in school classes as an example of why more laws and more government enforcement are necessary.

Instead, it is treated as some historic fairy tale without a scintilla of critical mention of the way the crime is no longer the subject: The perpetrator and the fabricated moral of the story determines how or if it is to be told. Welcome to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, some animals are indeed more equal than others.

If any rural people are reading this, please note “The Grand Portage Band prohibits hunting or trapping wolves on its territory but allows people to chase away or kill those creating a nuisance”.

Is this not what rural Americans (since both the Original Colonies and the Founding of our nation) have found to be how wolves should be administered in rural America -BY COUNTIES – the Local and most responsive level of government (called Subsidiarity) under the protection of responsible State governments? Is this not what Europeans are discovering about expanding wolf populations under EU/UN bureaucrats and less than protective national governments? If what Native Americans can and are doing in-line with their culture and historical interface with the natural environment to “live with” wolves by successfully prohibiting “hunting or trapping wolves” while “allowing people to chase away or kill those creating a nuisance” works and is tolerated; why can’t or shouldn’t Counties follow this example? Since state governments are proven notorious cowards about protecting rural residents from deadly and dangerous wild animals of interest to federal interlopers and far-off urban dandies, forget about state licensing and state revenues – let Counties define “Nuisance” as broadly as they want to loose their residents and their agents with a broad range of “Nuisance Eliminator” devices and means.

Evidently this sort of Native American wolf “management” works for the urban newspapers, state and federal bureaucrats and all their wolf enablers. One might say, what is good for the Native American should be good for the non-Native American. Besides, after years of reading about how Native Americans live and have lived in “harmony” with Nature; I for one can only say we should emulate this ancient and honorable system that probably goes back as far as that other famous bridge, The Land Bridge across the Bering Straits between Asia and North America.

Ancient Egyptians credited Isis with the oversight of order, law and custom. Hellenic people first depicted their God of order, law and custom as Dike, the daughter of Themis. She was the first shown with a sword (for power), a blindfold (for objectivity) and a scale (to measure support and opposition). Romans gave this concern to their Goddess Lustitia or Lady Justice. Lady Justice has since appeared on coins and in front of courts and courthouses from Berlin to Seattle and beyond.

As I close with the question to the newspapers, bureaucrats and enviro-tyrants “are you honest?” allow me to suggest a replacement for Lady Justice on the basis of the wolf travesty you are perpetrating upon rural North America and rural Europe. I suggest a 200lb/kilo drooling baby in a diaper with only a sword (no blindfold and no scales), swinging the sword at anyone who will not feed him. That is how the media and bureaucrats in servitude to eco-tyrants really “weigh their options”.

What do you think? Just asking.

Jim Beers
15 March 2014

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Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.

Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting. You can receive future articles by sending a request with your e-mail address to: jimbeers7@comcast.net